


Least Expected

by atti (attilatehbun)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Friendship, Hogwarts Era, The Quidditch Pitch: From Diagon Alley to Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-10
Updated: 2006-11-10
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attilatehbun/pseuds/atti
Summary: Things are going very veryverybadly for Harry, Ron, and Hermione.





	Least Expected

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Many thanks to MagentaBear and Mench for beta-tasticness.  


* * *

~*~  
  
It was the end. There was no way it couldn’t be.  
  
Deep in his heart, had he always known it would come to this? Did he really expect that he would ever succeed? They had failed. They had come so far, but it wasn’t far enough.  
  
It was the end. For all of them.  
  
The three of them had started out well enough. When they still stood at the top of the hill, it was a mere handful of Death Eaters. They were holding their own. They could win.  
  
Soon they were at the bottom of the hill, but things weren’t hopeless. More Death Eaters were swarming, but they weren’t surrounded, not yet. They still had room to retreat.  
  
Then the tide of black hoods crashed them against the rocks at the foot of the cliff. But they were still strong; they could still fight. If they _could just get one second to think_ they could apparate. The Order would be coming along any minute. Things had been worse for him, for all three of them, and they’d made it out.  
  
But the Order didn’t come. They didn’t get one second. Things had never actually been worse than this.  
  
And now. Now. There wasn’t any salvation. There were too many Death Eaters, too many hexes; the rock at their backs was too hard. The smart thing to do would be accept it. One glance at his friends set Harry’s mouth in a bitter smile: nothing would make them stop fighting.  
  
Ron was already down, unable to apparate or be apparated. Harry and Hermione still had their feet, but leaving Ron to die was out of the question. Every time he protested, yelling for them to get out, to save themselves, Hermione turned the full force of her powerful fury against _him_. Harry knew that even if he were to suffer a bout of momentary insanity and suggest escape, Hermione would never leave. She would fight tooth and nail just to end up another broken body beside Ron’s. No, the three of them would live together or they would die together. Nothing else was acceptable.  
  
Instead, they took up, shoulder to shoulder in front of Ron, while Ron shot whatever he could through their legs.  
  
Death Eaters were still falling, but it was emptying the ocean with a thimble. A thimble with a hole in it. It would not be long now.  
  
  
  
A fierce war cry split the air. Harry turned first, then Ron and Hermione lifted their heads in unison.  
  
There it was again. Oddly…high pitched.  
  
At the second cry, the Death Eaters began to turn, to look. And promptly froze in disbelief.  
  
A lone figure stood silhouetted against the setting sun at the top of the hill. This on its own would hardly have given anyone pause. A lone figure attempting to join any battle as one-sided as this one had become would be widely regarded as possessing suicidal tendencies. Nevertheless, they were all struck dumb, because there was clearly something wrong with this figure. Beyond the presumed death wish, that is. The creature’s body was weirdly out of proportion, too tall - and too skinny for too long in the wrong place. The figure was a giraffe with its neck on top of its head.  
  
It was only after that first moment, did Harry realize. Too-tall-too-skinny-too-long was merely a column of woolen caps, tea cozies, and oven mitts. His bitter smile became a snort, then a giggle, then a guffaw. The Death Eaters, poised to slay his companions and deliver him to their master, were perplexed even further. What maniac, apart, perhaps, from the woman Lestrange, would laugh in the face of his own demise?  
  
One final time did the cry rend the air. The figure stood alone for only a split second longer. Another shadowy figure joined it, then another, and another, then the tide broke. More creatures poured in, until the crest of the hill was one long stripe of bat-like ears, spatulas, and tea towels against the sun. Dobby thrust his fist into the air, clutching what appeared to be Harry’s old sock filled with rocks, and the House Elf Army flooded down into the valley.  
  
Understandably, the Death Eaters were not particularly afraid, at first. Unnerved, yes. Confused as all get out, yes. But not afraid. What reason was there to be afraid of such lowly creatures?  
  
Clearly they had never heard the expression, ‘Never underestimate the little guy.’  
  
The Death Eaters standing their ground when the first wave hit were thrown higher and farther than any gnome any Weasley had ever tossed. (Goyle Sr. was found two days later, stranded at the top of a large pine tree, too terrified to apparate away.) The elves decimated them. One wave of each long hand would scatter or topple half a dozen Death Eaters. More still were felled by the rolling pins, pokers, broom handles, and saucepans applied to knees, toes, and coccyges.  
  
You’d go down too, if walloped in the knee with a rock-sock by two feet of pure fury.  
  
Not to mention the kicking and the biting and the rapid impacts to sensitive areas.  
  
Dobby in particular seemed to take great pleasure in jumping up and down on Lucius Malfoy’s middle. It’s not too far-fetched to assume that Lucius spent those wretched moments hoping Draco came up to snuff, as the chance of any future heir was rapidly going out the window. (Ron would later store this image next to The Amazing Bouncing Ferret in the file marked Funny Things Happening to Bad People.) And, you know, Dobby didn’t lose a single one of Hermione’s woolly bladders while he did it.  
  
The shrill screeches served better than phoenix song to heal the trio. Laughing, Harry took out two Death Eaters with one spell. Hermione paused long enough to position Ron in a more easily defensible nook before plunging headlong into battle, hair streaming behind her and a battle cry of her own on her lips. Ron, unable to stand, alternated between hurling rocks with Keeper-honed skill and firing hexes into the masses.  
  
With that, the tide was turned.  
  
All they had to do was remember to aim high.


End file.
